Part 4: Map 3, Part 1: Recruitment

Map 3, Part 1: Recruitment



But something still doesn't seem right...
Where'd Serra go?

On cue, Serra teleports in.



Serra... Please... Don't. Ever. Do that to me again.
Do what? Oh... You mean put you to sleep to get you to do what I want? What's so wrong with that?
...... "What's wrong with that?" Seriously... You really are a follower of some dark god...
Am not! Matthew, that's such a rude thing to say! We've definitely got to work on your manners! Vassals are supposed to be polite to their masters at all times!
Hold on a sec... Did you say vassal? Serra... Please. I won your bet, so I'm free to go. Look for another vassal like you said you would.
Tee hee. Who ever said you were awake?
!!!
Imaginary minions! Spawn now!



Oh... fiddlesticks...
That's right, Matthew. You're still dreaming! You've been asleep all along! You should have figured that out by now!
So you trapped me in a dream, within a dream, within a dream? And you expected me to figure that out? Really?
No, I thought you'd die on the second dream level! It's surprising you even made it this far! But you won't get so lucky this time! Because to escape, you'll have to defeat me! And I can make myself as powerful as I want!
Well, that's not very fair...
What do you mean, not fair? I'm in control of this dream! I could kill you right now if I really wanted to! But I'm far too compassionate to let you die that quickly.
Right... Thanks a lot...
Hey, you should be praising me for my kindness! I might even let you have some help, if you asked...
You will?
Yeah! Watch me!



That's Oswin, Hector, and Lucius, with Erk and Sain offscreen.

Tada! There's some familiar faces I pulled from your subconscious. But you'll have to convince them to join your side first! No freebies for you!
Oh boy... This will be fun...
Yeah! That's the spirit! This is great practice for improving your fighting skills! Once you're my vassal, I'll expect you to act as my body guard and escort too!
Ah... Someone... Spare... me...
Adelheid, you've got to get me out of here! I'm so desperate, I'm breaking the fourth wall. Now wake me up without killing me! Fast!



Ah, you didn't think we'd get the first turn, did you?



No one can defeat me now! NO ONE! I'm invincible!



I'm just here to cause trouble!







Matthew, you wouldn't dare! Can't you see I'm too powerful for you to defeat? ust give up already and become my vassal! I mean, who wouldn't want to have a sweet little cleric girl as their master?
Listen, Serra. I never agreed to your wager. I just want out... And for the last time, I don't want to be your vassal!
Fine. Have it your way! I'll just beat you, and you'll have to call me Lady Serra from now on! Got it?
Sigh... Seriously? Did you not hear a word I said?



Well this is off to a great start already, isn't it?



But a poison jet is there for us. By poisoning us, we're no longer asleep, and aren't just beat up for a few turns.



Okay, now, NOW we get to play. First, though, let's take a look at a few important things.



So, this is Serra. Serra is... Much stronger than us. We can't fight that as we currently are. Epic Hax restores HP equal to the damage it deals, by the way. We will endeavor to never get hit by it.



This is our immediate area.



These generics represent the average stats of everything we'll see this map, except named units and stuff currently pressed against the far right side of the map. Make no mistake, though, their stats may not be great but their equipment often is. You don't need great stats to make a Brave Lance hurt. The Lord has an Iron Sword and a Slim Lance, the Riders have a Heavy Spear/a Brave Lance/a Short Spear.






So, as you'll note, the recruits kinda get better as they get further from you. Oswin is fine, Erk is hugely useful and comes with a staff, Hector is Hector, and Lucius will double anything even weighed down, although unfortunately with a Con that makes him impossible to rescue. Lucius weirdly doesn't have a healing staff but it's whatever, he can trade off with Erk if Erk needs healing, right?



This is that right hand side. Again, this screenshot of the upper right corner is something I'll get back to much later, but for now let's look at the units. So what about Sain?



Sain has custom boss equipment. Because, I mean, sure! But the cavaliers accompanying him are really threatening, with over about 24 strength/15 defense. The druids by Nergal are stationary, but they have 24 magic/14 resistance and Luna/Nosferatu/Luna and Nosferatu. Nergal himself?



Yeah, we're not going to be messing with Nergal. In fact, we're not going to get near that area until he's out of Eclipse casts.



This guy's out on a peak and he's hard to lure out since he'll really only aggro you if you stand on the ruins, and he's pretty strong, too. But if we kill him we get a red gem.



We can spend that at the vendor in the lower right.



These peg knights have, variously, Brave Lances, Heavy Spears, Javelins. They're aggro'd to us at the start but it's not a huge deal, they're not that strong, we'll be ready for them.



Sonia and Limstella are out of the way and we can't hurt them, and they're both equipped with this thing, the Morph Staff. It's... Interesting. You'll see what it does later.




Oh, but we can't forget Matthew! He's not the strongest, but his equipment's really good. That Runesword in particular is going to be great for us, all the healing we need to last the first section.

That in mind, let's get started on this map, shall me?



The sage and valkyrie right here only have healing stuff. A lot of enemies start aggro'd to us so we need to get rid of them as soon as possible. The chest here is completely worthless, it just has some holy water and that is in no way enough to mitigate Epic Hax. I'm not wasting a turn getting it.



So let's start this off killing this guy. We use the Killing Edge because it's our lightest weapon, not weighing us down at all, which will he helpful against the wyverns coming after us. The damage that DOES get through will be healed off with the Runesword next turn. Kill this guy brings us up to 54 EXP, coolly.



Positioned where we are, only one wyvern rider and the wyvern lord can hit us. That wyvern rider is gone now.



Assassin Matthew actually has fantastic growths. I don't proc it this run, but his speed growth is actually over 100%.



Silencer gives extra EXP. That's cool.



Step 2 is to kill the one with the brave lance. Also that Valkyrie is poisoned now.



That'll do, Matthew. Enemy phase, people move around, we get attacked by the other wyvern rider but we heal it off with the runesword. Time to get our recruit on.



Sir Oswin!
Matthew? Is that you?
Yeah, glad you recognized me.



What did you say?!
We're in a dream, Oswin. There won't be any negative consequences, if that's what you're worried about...
Even so, I don't believe we should kill her...
Bur Sir Oswin! You don't understand the situation I'm in! She's trapped me here against my will. Killing her is the only way out...
... I see. If what you say is true... Then I will help you escape.

You know, it certainly wasn't very difficult to convince him to kill Serra. However, recruiting him will cause the two knights there to turn into strong Generals at the end of the turn, one with a Heavy Spear and one with a Short Spear.



Oswin uses his own Short Spear here, and Matthew is still equipped with the Runesword, so both are capable of counterattacking at range.




Well that was simple.



But troops are starting to close in quickly. We still haven't aggro'd Erk and will try not to until we've cleared out the fliers - best not bite off more than we can chew. That longbow nomad trooper is really unthreatening, though, and so is the handaxe/halberd barbarian. The ballistician over there is similarly a non-issue - we can handle things as they are now.



This is the range we can't enter. Remember that.




Matthew's Silver Sword and Oswin's Silver Axe are able to deal with the generals, even with one of them sitting on a fort.



During the enemy phase, nothing happens.



And Matthew's not poisoned anymore!

We'll have to be careful moving forward from here, though, because there's a trap for Matthew. Say we want to attack that ballistician, just to get him out of the way.



This seems fine, right? We're out of Erk range and we can take attacks from these guys unless we just get phenomenally unlucky, anything less is just cause to bring out the Runesword and nothing more. But that just leads to...



She would do that... Now what?

This isn't game-ending or anything, there is actually a way out of this that I'll cover shortly. But for now it's just a huge annoyance that I don't want to deal with, so I'll be stepping carefully.



These are the trapped tiles. Eight of them in total. Of course, attacking that ballistician is a silly idea anyway, because it can't hurt us.



The Brave Lance peg is kind of a threat and even though this isn't really any better than letting him attack me I want him out of the way. I don't want to back Matthew to the fort but this gets him out of the way of the Swordslayer barbarian. She only hit Matthew once, so it's okay. Oswin, meanwhile, takes out a random other one.





Oswin tanks as much as he can.



Matthew is a less successful tank.



Now's a good time to be on a fort. Should've done it last turn. Oswin picks off what he can. I want to deal with that brave bow nomad but I can't get close enough without attracting Erk. I was lucky not to last turn, the nomad moved first and to the same square Erk would've.



Oswin fails to kill this guy,



But not this one.



The halberd barbarian can sorta damage us, so he dies first, and Matthew takes advantage of his growths. I forget that the nomad has a sword so I attack the ballistician thinking they both can't damage either Matthew or Oswin.





And, for my troubles, accidentally attract part of Hector's group. But thankfully not the man himself.



I attract something else, too.

My AI is a fail! So I've decided to attack you!

See, the Morph staff doesn't actually work on everyone. Or most people. It does work on Matthew, which I'll get to when it's relevant, but Matthew isn't in Sonia's range. Actually, it seems like Sonia is really hesitant to hit Matthew if someone else is in her range. I've seen it happen but it appears to be very rare, and Limstella seems to reliably not target him if there's anyone else in range.



And the nomad misses us. How nice.



Back to us, Oswin scares this guy back to his healer.



Doing a bit of math, Erk has 30 might when wielding Fimbulvetr, and Matthew has 19 HP and 8 res, so...



I elect not to get him killed.



It's time. Because of the fort Erk is on, this won't attract both him and the Nomad, just one or the other can hit Matthew from here, which is why I can do it with the health I'm at.



Moot point, though. This miss doesn't really matter, I'm healing Matthew ASAP anyway.



Erk!
What? Matthew?
Listen to me, Erk. I need help killing Serra.
What?! Are you insane? I know she's extremely... difficult to deal with, but killing her--
We're in a dream, Erk. Killing her here won't actually harm her... She'll just... Wake up. Now are you interested?
Hmm. If what you say is true... Then, yes, I'll be more than happy to assist you.

And our party slowly grows! Now let's get ready to take on Hector's group.



Oswin gets into position and equips his short spear as Erk heals up Matthew. Erk also switches to Fire, because it weighs less and having a higher dodge rate is very important. Of course, the aim is to avoid having to rely on that luck, but each time that luck swings our way, we can afford to make that much more progress without having to worry about being swarmed by reinforcements from spending time not hitting them.



Reinforcements like this! There's a new Hammer Barbarian and Brave Bow Nomad Trooper. This is Erk's doing, unfortunately - recruiting him starts this reinforcement wave. We can deal with this, but... Each new recruit makes the more reinforcement wave more threatening. Let's make good time clearing this map, okay? By the way, those Nomad Trooper reinforcements appear to be bugged and reward 0 EXP for killing them.



And... What's this?



"I await you on the Dread Isle."

Mountains crop up. So does a Denning. Denning hits hard with his ballista - let's not get in his way. He says that both when he appears and every time he attacks someone.



Erk deals with the nomad he was hanging around before.




Oswin tanks up top.



Some of the damage is healed off, and Matthew takes a hit that doesn't matter much - low damage + erk is around to heal if necessary. In general we're a lot safer now that we have Erk. It's nice. The brave bow nomad is thankfully pretty inaccurate.



Reminder of the range we're working against.



Erk and Matthew take out a couple enemies. I elect not to have Oswin attack, because even if he hits all it'll do is open him up for counterattack damage, what with not being able to kill and having an enemy healer out there.



Moment of truth here. The light brand merc indeed flees due to not having full HP.



One of those "things that is convenient but not necessary."



Hector hits Oswin. Oswin does not hit Hector.



Alright. Now to set up some fun things.



Young master!
Oh, Matthew. It's you. Ready to die?
Milord, please! Withhold your axe! I bear good news!
Eh? What news?
You've always held a grudge against Serra, have you not?
Yeah... So what? What are you scheming? Out with it.
Well, you see, young master... I actually could use your help in... Disposing of Serra.
"Disposing?" What do you mean?
We're in a dream young master. And to escape this dream, I need to kill Serra.
Kill Serra, eh? And if we did, she wouldn't really die?
Precisely, milord.
Ah. Perfect.



Young master? Whoah! Wait up for me!

Hector



Meanwhile, this Valkyrie's been really bothering me, Hector goes to town with the Wolf Beil, and Erk kills a magic swordsman.

Of course, now that Hector's on our side, the reinforcement pattern has changed... But the field's pretty much clear. How bad could it be?



Every turn. While trying to stay out of the danger zone, health-wise, and running Nergal out of Eclipses.

It's not as bad as it sounds, but... I mean, we're not really... Near the end of this map.

To be continued!

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